Step 1 of connecting begins by saying, “Hello”. This single word delivers a clear message, “Yes, I see you. You are important!”

When the person you are speaking to is angry and upset, continue to use words that not only keep your initial connection alive, but thriving.

Create connection by moving from our heart

This episode brings is on Tip #8 of the 10 Tips for Redirecting Conflict. Which in my book is Titled as:

Avoid Objectifying Yourself

“The rules are …”

“The Program says that …”

“In this house…”

Are three perfect examples of how we can immediately drop our connection and dehumanize ourself. If we are speaking to Mr. Angry then the chances are that we are no longer being seen as Ria, Joe or Laureen, but as The Rule – The Program – The House.

And worse yet it is very easy to commit violence against inanimate objects.

Instead of saying a rule statement: “You know the rules of this house! Wash your dishes.”

Try an I statement: “When I found the dirty dishes, I felt angry and upset. I’d appreciate it if you could wash them when you are done eating.”

Hello is a nice beginning, but you can shorten this to Hi, Hey – make sure it fits you, but isn’t so comfortable that you resort back to old habits of disconnecting.

Listen along to the episode as I detail more about this Tip with a story about a shoplifter and what I learned about Having You @Hello

What – symbolizes disconnect. Keep communication easy by abiding by one simple truth: People like to know that they are being heard – Be an Active listener.

We rely on active listeners to rely via physical and verbal clues that “Yes, Indeed I am heard.” There is really no better feeling that knowing your message was relayed.

And yet…more often than not…When we are stuck in the muck we disconnect and end up not hearing the speaker and need to ask “What?” “What’s that?” way too much.

Do not fear – their is hope for all of use to perfect the art of active listening. Not only is it pretty easy, but I have some simple phrases that help me when I need to listen, but might also be having a hard time.

Here is my short list for Instead of saying What?

– Please say more

– Say more

– Could you say more?

– Please go on

When you use these easy phrases with a bit of physical encouragement like:

Nodding

Open stance

Indirect eye contact

Tilted head

Yow! Life gets a whole lot easier.

Listen to this podcast and find out more tips on how to use Active Listening and avoid the “What?”

We are discussing Tip 6 of the Ten Tips for Redirecting Conflict in my book Leading Chaos; An Essential Guide to Conflict Management.

In the book, I titled this Tip 6: Be Mindful of Words that Incite. There are a lot of words and phrases that come to mind, but to say “Calm Down” has to be the most inciting phrase of all.

The funny thing is that when we say this phrase we do so because we want to help. Unfortunately, our best intentions get railroaded and we not only incite the person further, but shut down our initial invitation to move through the crisis.

The person in crisis hears “Calm Down”

And they think: Calm What?

My actions?

My words?

My thoughts?

The Invitation was meant to help the person, perhaps slow down their speech, stop moving around, and to work with you. But instead of clearly saying, “I want to hear, please speak clearly.” We shorten our invitation to converse by saying “Calm Down”

Here are some other phrases to avoid:

Think instead, What is it about her person that is not calm and tell them directly. Not only will it help them, but it will help you and your invitation to open communication.

Go ahead and download The Invitation and let’s enjoy a bit of you and me time as we both polish our crisis intervention skills and continue to work towards keep ourself safe and the scene at hand safe too.

Who or what…is best known for setting the pace, of any race, and always finishing on top? Still guessing – well, while you are trying to figure that out the Savvy Turtle is already two strides ahead of the game. Yes indeed, The Savvy Turtle always finishes first.

Admit it and save yourself some time. You simply won’t win a race with a turtle. Instead, embrace the pace. Be one with the Way of the Turtle.

Yo- time to get your Savvy Turtle mojo

The Way of the Turtle is undoubtedly a high level skill for many crisis interveners. Why? When chaos enters a room there is an immediate up swell of fear, misinformation, and distress. All that yuck leads us to irrational decision making.

Irrational decision making is best known as: A Knee jerk decision. Meaning, we jump to conclusions and excelerate to a ridiculous pace that is not sustainable. This ridiculous pace in turns feeds the confusion and makes chaos very happy indeed.

Advance practitioners in the field of crisis intervention know that you embrace the Savvy Turtle Way

Once you get this practice down…or at least get a sense of what you can gain when you take one step at a time – you will love doing the Slow Dance. If you don’t know what the Slow Dance is listen to the previous episode 043-PT23- Slow Dance.

3. Set the Pace– this is covered on page 99 in the book.

To become the turtle you must own up to every time you ever allowed yourself to be swayed by another person’s frenetic energy.

Instead (as it reads from my book) – Avoid matching an angry person’ level of agitation. If a person get agitated because you are not going fast enough Be a Savvy Turtle – Your only goal right then is to keep the scene safe –

A person who feels that nothing and no one is helping him will not be helped by others who match his frenetic energy.

And – for those who listened and want to hear the Drop the Content episode- click Drop the Content

Okay time to listen to this podcast and get the tips and stories of Savvy Turtle tips – and begin practicing the Way of the Savvy Turtle.

Learn the Slow Dance Methodology and turn your biggest challenges and toughest adversaries into smooth stepping partners on the dance floor of life.

We can all benefit from knowing how to ~ Slow Dance

You know you are a Slow Dancer when you maintaing the pace of “one step at a time” even as everyone around you is vying to make the dance go faster you continue with a steady and rhythmic pace of one step at a time.

Not only will that make you stand out on the ball room dance floor it will also make you stand out in a crowd when chaos is around.

Chaos fears the Slow Dancer, because he or she will not allow themselves to be directed by the events at hand. Even when everything and everyone around the Slow Dancer begins to swirl out of control – the Slow Dancer remains steady-on.

Here are the 4-Key steps for beginning a Slow Dance with a distressed person

In this podcast episode, we review a real life intervention that took place while I was a crisis clinician at at local hospital. I described the scene in my book and titled it “Permission to Cry”. It is on page 96.

In Permission to Cry…Never before had I seen a man so naked to the world then on the night of a later crisis call. He stood stock still and was described as being catatonic.

With a soft hand on his shoulder we worked together to acknowledge his emotions and help him move on.

You have permission to cry – acknowledge your emotions – stand on top of the tree tops and yell out loudly “Im fed up and I can’t take it any more!”

There are certainly easy ways to emote. Don’t you agree?

Naked Emotions is not a particularly happy state is it. And yet, we have all experienced moments of pure humility and despair.

Please listen along and feel free to send me a line and share your own thoughts on this podcast and the feeling of naked emotions.

The bed is in Edinburg and is being repaired before she can roll on. So far 10,000 pounds have been raised – but that is still quite shy of her target of 200,000 pounds. Money she will use to build a home for vulnerable children. Donate Great British Bed Push donate

The secret to successful anger management is to, “Say a lot, by saying a little”. Hear the first of 10 secret syrups to sweeten up angry communication in part 21 of the on going series The Leading Chaos Story.

Rosie Mai is wearing red sneakers with her plaid PJs – #GreatBritishBedPush – what will she wear when this pair wears out?

What’s that? You don’t know about Rosie Mai’s 1200 miles bed push to raise funds for vulnerable children? Listen to this podcast ep: Great British Bed Push to find the behind the scenes story.

The bed is in Edinburg and is being repaired before she can roll on.

We have been contacted via Response Training Programs Facebook page, by kind Scottish folk to find out if Rosie will be passing through Aviemore, Scotland a beautiful spot in the countryside. We hope they will connect and have a warm, dry bed for Rosie to sleep on.

Dramatic music in the background playing as Ria reads out loud the following story:Inside the house at 152 Lavender Lane, The Marshal family was getting ready for bed, everyone that is except for the eldest son, Sean. He was in his room talking to his friend Leo who had just told Sean that Kathy, Sean’s girlfriend was seen talking to John Smith – Sean’s arch-enemy ever since ninth grade…when John Smith and Kathy had dated for 2-weeks. Sean had a wicked temper and upon hearing this news about Kathy he slammed down the phone and knew he had to go out and find John Smith and tell him to stay away from his girl. Sean’s temper had been getting worse and worse and Mr. and Mrs. Marshal were beside themselves trying to figure out what to do!

Music change to Leading Chaos Podcast theme song “Pendulum”

~ That is until Mr. and Mrs. Marshal began subscribing to the Leading Chaos Podcast. The Marshal now know that people get upset and angry due to a loss of self control(listen to Ep:28-PT19-Undressing Anger like Mr. & Mrs. Marshal did ☺ to learn more about anger’s relationship to self control)and when Sean’s temper is flaring instead of taking Sean’s control away – they can instead empower Sean to regain self control. Music change back to dramatic tone…. Sean was carrying his sneakers and pulling up his sagging jeans and he ran down the stairs and into the Marshals living room Sean yelled out “I’ll be back in a while.” Mrs. Marshal said, “It’s 10 Sean can it wait till tomorrow?” “John Smith is seeing Kathy. No it can’t wait.” Mr. Marshal replied, “Girl trouble?” Ya, but I will take care of it. Mr. Marshal continued, “Can I ask you a quick favor?” “What?” said Sean hurriedly?

“I’m going to take a slow breath in and then exhale – please join me”Background music change again!

And without waiting Mr. Marshal started breathing in and letting his chest visibly rise. And then he exhaled out slow and loudly.

Sean looked at his father sideways and shook his head.

“Just this small favor Sean, I know you can do it.”

Sean, breathed in and Mrs. Marshal joined in too. With Mr. Marshal leading the breathing exercise, the three Marshals were able to all breathe out at the same time and then Sean snickered, “You guys are so weird.”

Mr. Marshal replied, “It is good to see you smile.” Then he said, “The night is long how and I know you really want to run right out the door. But you can control time right now. How about you and I go talk about this girl trouble and make a plan that you won’t regret.”Music in the background playing as Ria reads out loud the following story:

When we think we have no power or control, we can do simple steps to turn a situation around.

5- techniques to use when helping to win over an angry person

Offer them choices

Take care of their self image

Acknowledge their power

Address them with respect

Provide a win/win solution

Listen to this episode and find out how to integrate these winning tools into your communication skill list.

Undressing Anger is like pealing onion ~ Unpleasant at first, but once revealed it ain’t so bad.

Time to Undress Anger and show it for what it is…sometimes scary, but no so bad.

Yes, anger is banking on you not knowing what to do, what to say and what to think.

Anger loves the “what’s” that create confusion and chaos. But, with a little bit of know-how you can peal away at anger and undress its flame.

And it gets better!

All we have to do is peal away the onion and anger one layer at a time.

In this episode I share a pivotal moment for me when I “got” anger for the first time and eliminated the odor.

It all began, while researching on the cause and effect of anger and writing what is today known as the Response Curriculum. I came across an article written by Dr. Barry J. Nigrosh titled “Physical Contact Skills in Specialized Training for Prevention and Management o f Violence” which referred to the Fear of Loss of Self-Control as the generalized cause of anger and aggression.

Ah-Ha! I thought. That makes absolute sense, but what followed in that article from 1983 has stuck with me ever since –

The attack or violent episode gives the person a brief moment of power and thus relief from feeling hopelessness.

The person fears losing control, they feel power from the violent act, but it also stirs up an immense amount of anxiety internally.

With these two layers I began approaching anger from a whole new direction and no longer feared it, because it’s stink no longer stuck.

Listen to the full podcast here and learn how to use these two statements to undress anger in your own backyard.